h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I clearly remember loading up windows 98 at home and upon being confronted with the password welcome screen, whereby there was an option to 'cancel' entering a password.. this then loaded windows as normal .
I'm thinking this was a default setting with '98 because I remember being able to do this at friends houses as well! So entering a password to access the computer was presumably in windows-world only a fun, secret service style gimmick which could be bypassed with one button .

On a similar vein, I also recall routinely passing by open plan office buildings of an evening and seeing row upon row of monitors showing 'windows 98 is shutting down' hung indefinately on the screens; a bug that windows never ever bothered patching . This is only about a decade ago; were our expectations of security and competancy is software so low, such a short time ago?

Windows 98 was pretty bad. I stuck with w95 until xp came along.

Oh, and I think the password thing was to allow you to set a password. Once you'd set it, you had to enter it every time. I think.

Ahh! That kinda makes sense. I did wonder that even Micro$oft could've been so inept as to put a 'nah don't bother with the password- I trust ya' button in the gateway into someone's personal files. Though it would've made more sense to just bypass the password screen all together if no password was set... as they did in XP I suppose..

"Windows 98 was pretty bad. I stuck with w95 until xp came along" [Gnomon]

My first computer [dating to 1997] came with Windows 95. Later I pretty much had to install 98 on it in order to get newer versions of the antivirus software I felt was necessary. When I bought my next computer [in 1996], I went with XP. My current computer was new in 2014.

Not knowing how often to buy new computers, I used the model that has worked well for me when buying cars. Nine years between new models. Obviously, that's at least a year too long for computers, as my first two pretty much broke down after nine and eight years respectively.

I can justify having a car, though it annoys me that affordable cars have advanced very little in terms of fuel economy since the late 70s. 35 years ago, 28 miles per U.S. gallon [midpoint between highway and city driving] was considered a desirable fuel economy [for people who don't wish to do the math, that's almost 34 miles per Imperial gallon ]. Considering how much the talking heads natter on about innovation and making things better, you'd think gas mileage would be two or three times as much as that by now -- 35 years later.

Computers don't get you to the grocery store or school or your favorite vacation destination. They also are nowhere near as expensive as cars. I can forgive some quirks.

Not sure any of the major Microsoft Operating Systems were up to much when they were first released...

As far as I remember:

95 - was as buggy as hell and would crash every time you sneezed (remember the BSOD?)

98 - wasn't much better

98SE - (Second Edition) actually started to be useable, but you still got the occasional blue screen

XP - was a catastrophe in terms of reliability, security and compatibility until they got as far as releasing Service Pack 2 - from there on in, it was probably the most stable and efficient operating system they've produced.

Vista - the less said the better

Windows 7 - Basically Vista MkII - with a lot of the bugs sorted out.

It sounds as though Windows has learned from its mistakes, but the improvements were years in the making.

pah... everything was downhill from DOS 6.44... all that pointless GUI stuff... and, like anyone would ever* need a computer with more than 8 MB of RAM... rediculus...

98 SE was a huge improvement on Windows 2.? and 3.1, which I just never used if I could avoid it the plug n play aspect to it was always a laugh though at least with XP SP2, plug and play really did become plug and play (remember all that hutning through the loft, trying to find a floppy disc with the drivers on for a scanner or printer or otter piece of hardware? )

I really oughta actuall update soon though... now support for XP has finished... but it still seems to be working OK, for what I want to do, and at the mometn I've been heavily advised against windows 8, and as far as I can tell, its being pushed really hard, by retailers and online now, so there isn't necessarily easily to get hold of a win 7 machine, or disc for my homebuilt PC here, which.... probably oughta be updated too... if I had the dosh

I do mean to try fireing up my ancient DOS 6.44 and Win 3, machine, which is... somehwere in the house I think

My company has finished with XP. We had 4,500 XP computers and they have all been upgraded to Windows 7. If there are any XP machines left that people managed to hide away so that they wouldn't be upgraded, they'll stop working on Monday next. At least, they won't be able to connect to our network, rendering them useless.

The main reason for you to move away from XP is that Microsoft will no longer provide security updates for it, so if someone devises a new way of hacking into your computer, Microsoft will not provide a patch to prevent it.

I guess it's a big problem with corporate computers, and the cost of change, that your company, Gnomon, is forcing an upgrade to Windows 7 some eighteen months after Windows 8 was released.

My big problem with upgrading, from XP to 7 (I've been told not to go for 8 because of some of the otter software I use), is that I@ll have to upgrade another couple bits of software at the same time; cost over £1000 so I'm kinda not looking forward to that, what with an expected re-roofing bill of £7000 this year at some point, which is, combined more than I have income a year so it may have to be computers held togehter by gaffa tape and prayers for a couple more years

Either that, or they read Post 6, and concluded that the only time an OS becomes usable is when the new buggy version has been released.

I have observed that, like Star Trek films, versions of Windows alternate between excellent and execrable. You can trace it back: 8 bad, 7 good, Vista bad, XP good, ME bad, 2001 good, 200 bad, 98 good...

"I guess it's a big problem with corporate computers, and the cost of change, that your company, Gnomon, is forcing an upgrade to Windows 7 some eighteen months after Windows 8 was released" [Hygienicdispenser]



I think that deserves to be post of the day.

My new computer has Windows 8, which was customized to my liking by the shop that I bought it from. They transferred all my files from my previous computer at no extra charge.

I'm not a highly technical person. In a way, this helps me teach newbies how to use computers, as I like to keep things simple and basic. I feel for people who find computers confusing. I think they really *are* confusing. I console people with the idea that computers are not particularly intelligent.

[The fear of computers is not illogical. Our bodies and minds have stable limitations, whereas new computers can have tons more power than the computers they replaced. Machines can get better, but we can't . Ah, well, at least the Vingeian Singularity has not yet come to pass. With any luck, it never will ]

I've still got a PC running Win98 that I kept for games, when I swapped to iMac. Much preferred win98 to any newer version of windows I've used elsewhere. Prefer mac even more!

I'm sure it would be great for games. Online applications are another story. Computers need to have a lot more power than they used to, now that so much streaming stuff is taken for granted. Many people won't shop at websites that load too slowly, even if "too slowly" means longer than the blink of an eye. I used to have to deal with library patrons who expected instantaneous transitions from link to link. They would bite my head off if I suggested a little more patience.